Smart Money Moves

[00:00:00] Mickelle: Welcome, welcome everyone to the House of Peregrine podcast. Today, I am extremely excited to introduce you to Arielle Tucker. Arielle is a European based cross border financial planner, and she is joining us today to talk about Americans who would like to move abroad or who are living abroad. Arielle, thank you so much for coming on.

[00:00:21] Mickelle: Please introduce yourself to our community.

[00:00:24] Arielle: Thank you so much for having me. So yes, like you said, I am a cross border financial planner. I actually am an American. We were just talking about how we are both U. S. citizens, and I live in, in Zurich, Switzerland right now. I’ve also spent some time living in, in Berlin, and then also the Munich area in Germany.

[00:00:40] Arielle: And so now I’ve been abroad for like, 12 ish years. It goes by fast. Like, you kind of wake up and you’re like, wow, I’m really building a life abroad here. But I first moved abroad professionally back in 2011. I moved to Switzerland. My husband at that time was doing his PhD and he said, I got this with National Science Foundation.

[00:01:02] Arielle: I think we should move just, you know, Switzerland so I can do my PhD. And I was like, you know, me being like the numbers one, I was like, okay, well, how much would it cost? And how much are they paying you? And, oh, wait, they’re going to pay you like a somewhat livable wage for you to do your PhD versus if we had stayed at, you know, Boston or moved out to California.

[00:01:19] Arielle: Yeah. I was like, Oh, the numbers work so much better to move to Switzerland. Let’s go there. And so we moved here and I had had a bit of tax experience. I was, I love taxes. I find them really interesting. It’s a, it’s a story of people’s financials lives, you know, for the year. And so I had done some tax work.

[00:01:38] Mickelle: It’s, it’s a dark art. Like, I am so glad people like you exist. This is great.

[00:01:42] Arielle: I do. I do. I find it so interesting. And so when we were moving to Switzerland, I needed to get a job, right? I wasn’t doing a PhD. And so I needed to find a job. And when we moved to Zurich in 2011, it was kind of this really interesting time because FACA was kind of blowing up in Switzerland.

[00:01:57] Arielle: All, you know, you hear about secrets with bank accounts and things like that. And at that time, all of the banks were having to come into compliance and basically report back to the U S government. Hey, who has a secret Swiss bank account? What’s going on in that account. And so there was a lot of tax work for the U.

[00:02:15] Arielle: S. tax system at that time. And so basically every bank, all the big four, they were like desperate for anyone who had seen a 1040. And so I had seen a 1040. So I I, I found a job at PwC working on the international tax team. That’s really how I started my career. At that time, I didn’t know about cross border financial planning, but after working in tax for a few years, I very quickly realized, okay, we are Doing tax returns for people.

[00:02:45] Arielle: A tax return is a report of what happened the year before, but we’re not really doing any planning, and people would come to us like, wait, I have this, I have this giant balance due to the U. S. I live in Switzerland. Why do I owe additional tax to the U. S. government? And we’d have to explain, okay, well, this is, this is, there was no tax planning.

[00:03:04] Arielle: There was no thinking about how much are you paying this year? How, how much do you think you’re going to pay next year? How much are you going to pay in 10 years? Where are you moving after Switzerland? And that is like the planning piece that I just started getting a bit excited about. And so I was really lucky that my mentor there was like, you should go and become a financial planner.

[00:03:22] Arielle: And so that’s kind of the, the path I took. Yeah.

[00:03:25] Mickelle: So I want to back up and do a little bit of, so I would just like to say out to our audience that this is very U. S. based. It’s very U. S. specific, but a lot of our community is U. S. based and it is a very specific tax position. Is that a way to put it if you live abroad?

[00:03:40] Mickelle: Yes. Simply because the U. S. still, you still are liable for taxes in U. S. which is rather rare, not the only country, but it’s rarer to have to pay tax in a country you’re not living in at the time and sometimes leads to double taxation if you’re not careful despite all the treaties and everything. So you really have to be strategic.

[00:03:59] Mickelle: And so at House of Peregrine, we’re always telling people, telling our community, you need to have a team around you because this is not the way the world works for people to live in different countries. And it’s just not, it’s not the way the system’s set up. So you have to have your own team. And so a financial planner is one of those team members that we recommend for people, even before they leave the country, even, even when they’re thinking about it.

[00:04:21] Mickelle: Talk to someone, just talk to someone. It could save you. It could help you plan. It could just make your life just way more. Less stress, less stressful. And so, you work with Americans, specifically, who want to, or are living abroad, to plan their finances so that they have less surprises, because there’s just surprises.

[00:04:39] Mickelle: I don’t know. Is that?

[00:04:41] Arielle: Yeah. I get surprises sometimes. I’m a planner. I, I plan. So, thank you so much for taking a moment to highlight, basically, the plight of the U. S. Right? And when I say U. S. person, because it’s not just U. S. citizens, it’s also U. S. green card holders. You still have to maintain those reporting requirements back to the U.

[00:05:00] Arielle: S. even if you don’t live in the U. S. And that’s because the U. S. has citizenship based taxation. We don’t have residence based taxation, which is what all of Europe has, and like you said, like 99 percent of the world has residence based taxation. You live in a country, you file taxes in that country, you pay taxes to that country, and you’re done.

[00:05:20] Arielle: But with the U. S., it’s like, okay, you are a U. S. citizen. You now live in Germany or the Netherlands or Switzerland. You file your local, you know, country of residence, and then you go and file your U. S. tax return. Like, like you said, there’s a lot of treaties out there. There’s a lot of ways to plan around eliminating or reducing double taxation, but there are still areas where we see that are really problematic for, for, for U.

[00:05:45] Arielle: S. citizens because they’re essentially like, in a lot of ways, especially in Europe. They’re essentially just wearing handcuffs, right? They can’t really get into the local financial system because they’re U. S. citizens and the U. S. and the local country is very aware, okay, we’re going to have to report everything and you’re going to cause tax issues.

[00:06:03] Arielle: There are tax issues from investing locally oftentimes. And then from a U. S. perspective, it’s like you’re, Old bank, a local bank is like, well, you don’t live in this country. We can’t support you. And so you kind of are wearing handcuffs a lot of the times. And so our job a lot of times is to just walk alongside our clients and help them do the planning.

[00:06:23] Arielle: And you’re absolutely right. The clients who call us a year or two before they move, oh, I love those clients. So they’re my favorite clients. ‘cause then we can really do our best planning work, especially for those people who are moving to high tax countries. So if you’re moving from, maybe you’re moving from.

[00:06:36] Arielle: Florida. You have no state tax. You only have to think about federal tax rates. Your federal tax rates on the US side are going to be lower than if you move to, you know the Netherlands or Germany. So there’s tax planning that you can do before you hit those higher tax rates. And then we work, we support obviously a lot of clients come to us and they thought, oh, we were just going to move abroad.

[00:06:55] Arielle: It was going to be fun for, you know, two or three years. We’ve woken up and we’ve been here for seven years and oh my gosh, we’re not going back. What do we do now?

[00:07:03] Mickelle: You’ve just described me. I was like, oh, we’re here for a year. It’s suddenly been eight. We don’t know our plan. And so now, and we’ve started businesses as entrepreneurs.

[00:07:11] Mickelle: Oh

[00:07:11] Arielle: yeah. That’s like a whole nother thing.

[00:07:13] Mickelle: Yeah. So, and so I think you just stick with the personal side, right? That’s something we should clarify. Like.

[00:07:18] Arielle: Yeah. So, so I do, I kind of have a few countries that I really specialize in. And when you’re looking for a cross border financial planner, I would look for someone who specializes in a couple countries, right?

[00:07:30] Arielle: Because we have to stay completely on top of everything that’s happening on the US side. And then we also have to stay on top of everything that’s happening on the local countryside. That’s a lot to keep. And if, if you interview someone and they say, I do every country. You know, we can figure it out. I, I say, I don’t know.

[00:07:48] Arielle: So I really try to specialize. So we do support business owners, but only in limited countries. So if you’re a business owner in Switzerland or Germany, we will support you. But generally outside of that, there are a lot of additional considerations. I say we got to kind of be careful, but we support personal situations throughout Europe.

[00:08:04] Arielle: We don’t do the UK. There’s. Really unique treaty with the UK, so we look for UK experts to send. If you’re an expat, you’re moving to a country, you know, you have a true expat contract, meaning you are basically still have your US contract. You still are making US social security contributions from K contributions.

[00:08:22] Arielle: Often your tax equalized and you’re moving to Europe for that, you know, limited amount will often support those cases throughout Europe. So we really look at every case on a case by case basis and how we can best support the families we work with.

[00:08:34] Mickelle: Yeah. And so if I could break that down a little bit, when you move abroad, you could do it a number of ways.

[00:08:40] Mickelle: So there’s literally, you can just get on a plane, fly here, but you would be on a visa for, so you do have to apply for a visa if you’re going to come longer. But the way that you’re taxed or the way your money moves is maybe. You have to know which way it’s moving. So as you said, if you’re coming over on your same contract, you’re basically not really entering the money system of the country you’re in as much.

[00:09:03] Mickelle: So you’re kind of shielded. You would handle that person a certain way. Usually that’s a temporary move. Yeah,

[00:09:10] Arielle: and there’s some really exciting planning opportunities. For example, you get, your country puts you, your U. S., you’re living in the U. S. and your company says, we would like you to move as an expat to Germany for three years.

[00:09:23] Arielle: Would you like that as an opportunity? That’s actually an amazing planning opportunity because Germany cost of living is in a lot of ways a lot lower than it is in the U. S. Expats usually come with a lot of benefits and oftentimes you’re tax equalized. So you may pay like the same U. S. tax rate that you were paying, but now we’ve lowered your cost of living and you live in the heart of Europe.

[00:09:47] Arielle: It can be a great deal.

[00:09:50] Mickelle: So I just want to go back also and just go over the countries you do cover so that people if they’re listening, they can know. So Switzerland, obviously,

[00:09:57] Arielle: Germany,

[00:09:58] Mickelle: you said, and are those the two, the, the two that you cover? Okay.

[00:10:00] Arielle: We do, I mean, again, we look at everything on a case by case basis.

[00:10:03] Arielle: We do have some clients in, in the Netherlands. We have some clients in Belgium, in the Czech Republic, but I look at the situation really on a case by case basis to determine, do we have the expertise to handle that clients or not? I think the big one to know is again, we don’t do the UK. I don’t do, I do France sometimes if it’s the person is working in Switzerland.

[00:10:24] Arielle: But generally like France, French business, I don’t do that. We don’t really do Italy. We have wonderful partners who handle those countries and so we are happy to refer that work out to them.

[00:10:34] Mickelle: Nice. Actually. So someone could contact you if they’re thinking of moving to Europe. Maybe even if they have a country, if their country.

[00:10:41] Mickelle: If they’re thinking, if they’re country shopping, which I know sounds terrible, but if they’re like, okay. We have

[00:10:45] Arielle: people, we absolutely have people who are like, I want to move to Europe. And I’m like, okay, so we got to narrow that down a little bit. But we actually even just launched, because we’ve had so much demand, especially post election, where people are just like.

[00:10:58] Arielle: They feel like they just want more information. And so we have just launched a, basically a 45 minute paid console. You just have questions and you’re not even sure where to start. I will get on the phone with you and we will just do a paid console and just kind of discuss what, what are the things that you should even be thinking about?

[00:11:14] Arielle: Because it could be really overwhelming, but as a first step, I always say, if you haven’t traveled a lot in Europe, start taking vacations to Europe, let’s start there before we pack our suitcases.

[00:11:27] Mickelle: Yep. Yep. So I want to tell a little bit about my story. So this is what not to do. So, so we talked about the U.

[00:11:33] Mickelle: S. contract, the da da da. Then there’s the case where you just, you’re location independent with your work, your family. That’s a goal of yours. Maybe for us it was, it was like, Hey, we, we had a deal within our marriage that we would move away from Salt Lake City, which is where I grew up. By the time my oldest son was five, before he entered school, I wanted to.

[00:11:53] Mickelle: know where our next spot would be. And so on his fifth birthday, we moved here, but we had two months notice. So we just left, came, we got a visa, we were working with the government here, and then we, we landed. We didn’t do anything financially, we didn’t do anything, we had no, nothing. So then, when a few years passes, you know, we had little kids, we were just enjoying ourselves, we were working, my, my partner has a, he had a company back in the U.

[00:12:18] Mickelle: S. So, such a complicated financial picture. But then, I was in the U. S. I just needed a driver’s license. I just needed to renew my driver’s license. And they said, oh, would you like to register to vote? And I was like, sure, I’ll get that done too. So then a year later, we were looking with our, our. And they said, Oh, you have residency in Utah still.

[00:12:41] Mickelle: We should probably consider because you haven’t lived there for nearly eight years. And they said, Oh, but you, do you did it? They went down the list. And I was like, yes, I’ve done all those things. And they’re like, now you need to wait longer to move your state of residency. And so with a little planning, I would have known not to renew my driver’s license and to be able to optimize because it’s not that I don’t want to pay taxes is that we want to.

[00:13:02] Mickelle: optimize and not pay double, right? That’s the, that’s really, I think the goal of most people. It’s not like you’re trying to avoid taxes. It’s like you want to be smart about it and the system is not made for you.

[00:13:13] Arielle: Yes. Yes. And that’s, that’s where I live. People want to do the right thing. Like we don’t want to work with clients who are not compliant, right?

[00:13:20] Arielle: We don’t work with those clients. They want to do the right thing, but they want to do it in the most fair way because it’s not really a fair system, right? It’s like, you’re still kind of like. Stuck to the US system. Even though you’re not living there and you’re not living, you do nothing and you’re still like, okay, why do I owe you tax?

[00:13:34] Arielle: Then we’re trying to optimize within the system that there is and there’s a lot of ways to optimize within that system.

[00:13:42] Mickelle: Yeah, and that little thing, that little trigger of registering to vote, which is so ironic if you, you know, if you’re American and like it’s an emotional thing to. to register to vote.

[00:13:52] Mickelle: No, no, but you can.

[00:13:53] Arielle: You have a legal right to, to vote in your la Every state is different though. So I, I don’t know the rules off the top of my head with, with Utah. Every state has like rules to determine like, are you considered a resident or not? So that might be what’s going on here. And that is an important thing to note, right?

[00:14:08] Arielle: How aggressive is your state? Some states are very aggressive, right? New York, California. I’m thinking like top of mind of those states, they will send you letters and you’re like, you’ll get these letters and they sound so scary. And then you’re like, okay. Don’t be scared, right? There’s a process. Have the right team in place.

[00:14:25] Arielle: Navigate the process. Don’t just accept the letter that you receive. Ask questions. But you should be able to register to vote in all federal elections. You have that right as a U. S. citizen, but not all states allow you to vote in the local elections. No, no,

[00:14:40] Mickelle: no. But it showed that I was a tax resident still.

[00:14:42] Mickelle: It’s like one of those things that shows that you’re still a tax resident. I can vote all I want, but registering to vote triggered this point system or something that, oh, we really can’t. Yeah. If you had all,

[00:14:54] Arielle: yeah. If you still showed center of vital interest, we call it. Yes.

[00:14:58] Mickelle: That’s right. So, but had I known that strategically, I just would have said no and it would have started helping me out.

[00:15:03] Mickelle: So these are the types of little tiny things that you just don’t know. Why would you know this? If you’ve maybe lived in the US your whole life and this is your first time living abroad or when you do it with the company, they sometimes have support. So I would say that’s the other kind of person. We have this expat that’s supported by a company.

[00:15:19] Mickelle: Maybe they have their own HR legal team that’s kind of got all the contracts in place. They kind of can tell you, advise you a little bit. But the way we did it as entrepreneurs was all on our own and did not know. I mean, we knew we should probably talk to somebody, but it just wasn’t as strategic as I would have made it.

[00:15:37] Mickelle: And that’s what I always try and advise people like talk to an immigration lawyer, talk to a financial planner. Just start a relationship. You’re gonna need it.

[00:15:46] Arielle: Yeah. Yeah, it is. There, there’s just so much to know and you know, people are like, well, who do you, you just do it on yourself? No, when we move, like we’ve moved a bunch of times and even when we moved from Germany to Switzerland, we already lived in Switzerland for six years before coming back into the country.

[00:16:01] Arielle: I still hired immigration support. I still hired and my husband even had the support, but what I have learned is sometimes when you’re just given HR, as a US person, you have different hurdles, like in Europe, oftentimes we’re considered third country citizens. So it’s like, if you’re European, right, you’re kind of like first tier.

[00:16:21] Arielle: And then if you’re third country, you’re like America, Iraq, India, I mean, we’re all kind of like in this lower tier of visas. And so it’s really important. To advocate, and this is important because, especially if you’re thinking about being here long term, right, if you get the wrong visa, that could set you back years to get citizenship, right, if they just give you a short term, like, special visa.

[00:16:44] Arielle: Another thing I see, because I think, I don’t know if you’re seeing this, getting a second passport, getting an EU passport. Port like that’s the Mercedes of the 90s, right? People want the like that is a new status symbol So really thinking about like the citizenship planning and the path to your citizenship I think is so important and doing that like early on if you already are a u.

[00:17:04] Arielle: s and EU citizen, there’s still planning opportunities and you’re still a US citizen. You still have to consider like all the US tax edicts, but from a planning perspective of like which countries you go to, there’s still a lot of really exciting planets. Cause yes, you could technically just show up in a country and you have a right to be there and work there, but are you getting their most recent like tax incentives?

[00:17:26] Arielle: I don’t know. If you don’t like look into those and proactive, you might miss out. You might just pay more.

[00:17:32] Mickelle: Yep. And we actually just did this big we’re releasing it in a few weeks, this big deep dive on what to do the day you arrive in the Netherlands for your kids to be able to have more opportunities for, for getting another passport or having permanent residency.

[00:17:47] Mickelle: And so it’s, it really is worthwhile, even if it seems like, Oh, sure. I have to pay a consultation fee. It just. It’s just needed. So that’s, we always recommend financially, maybe even the same, if not more. I love this idea that you, so this is how a lot of people that I work with live their life and they either are moving around with a company that their, their spouse, or they are following the opportunities for the company and they provide for, you know, school or whatever, but some people are just starting that journey.

[00:18:18] Mickelle: Do you ever talk to people and help them know what to advocate for if their company is.

[00:18:23] Arielle: Yes. Yes. We actually just helped a client actually move to the, to the Netherlands. They were living in New York, fallen in love with someone in the Netherlands, had been like commuting for two years. And they basically went to their company and said, I would really like to work remotely in the Netherlands.

[00:18:38] Arielle: Okay. Side note, you can’t just show up with your USW2 job and like move to the Netherlands and live there permanently. I’m like, I know people are like, my job says I can work anywhere in the world. Yes, but that doesn’t give you, does not give you legal right to show up in a country and just like take up residence.

[00:18:55] Arielle: So back to the conversation. So the company loved this, this employee, really valued them and they were like, okay, so we’re going to figure out how to do this. They still hired us to advocate for them. They basically built their own team because they’re like, look, my company doesn’t know what they’re doing.

[00:19:12] Arielle: I need to build my own team to make sure that my financial stuff is set up so that when I move into the Netherlands. The company didn’t know about the 30 percent ruling, you know, all of these like little things. So they invested probably 20, 000 to go through this process. But we have saved them thousands, like tens of thousands.

[00:19:33] Arielle: I mean, that pays dividends because it’s setting you up there just to figure out the 30 percent ruling and how to navigate that. I mean, that for the next five years has paid for our service 10x.

[00:19:43] Mickelle: More than 10x. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And just for ease, there’s so many, and people only think, think of the tax benefits of the 30 percent ruling, but it’s also, you can exchange your driver’s license.

[00:19:54] Mickelle: It’s, it goes far beyond, you’re shielded from you, some US tax requirements or Netherlands tax. So not only is it money, but it’s just comfort that she just, she just got. So the, or he or she, I didn’t, you didn’t say it was he or she, but that, yeah. When someone comes to you, I love this idea of being, so in this case, she had a country she wanted to go to, so there’s the people that follow their company, but there’s also the people like me who are like, I live, and we call this a peregrine, right, we go where suits us best, right, so in my family, we’ve been here eight years, it still works for us, we always, everyone says, how long are you staying, and I always say, as long as it works for the five of us, I have three kids and two adults in my family, and so, And that’s a big, tall order for five people to be happy in a country if you don’t have to stay.

[00:20:37] Mickelle: And so that is what we, how we live our life. And so I think we’ve talked about this a little bit on the podcast. People in our community are always a flight risk because they’re always country shopping. Whether or not they stay for the rest of their life in a country, they are always thinking, Oh, what about this?

[00:20:50] Mickelle: What about this? What about Japan? What about Malta? What about this? And it’s not just for money reasons, it’s for lifestyle reasons, it’s for values reasons. And so to be able to be strategic about that, say you’re like, we have a goal to go live in three countries, let’s say, while our kids are small, doing that in the right order might even matter.

[00:21:07] Mickelle: Is that right?

[00:21:09] Arielle: Yeah. So I’ll give you a great example. Great. We had lived in Switzerland before. We moved back to New York for a short time, and then I got a job in, in Berlin. And so we were moving to a high tax country, right? Switzerland is relatively low for European standards. Germany, no, Germany is a high tax country.

[00:21:26] Arielle: So we moved to Germany. When you’re in Germany, Right. You can start to bank foreign tax credits. And so there’s basically two big tax opportunities for Americans living abroad. We have the foreign earned income exclusion, which is basically like all Americans, if you have earned income, right, you have job income or self employment income, you can exclude up to 130, 000 of that earned income, not passive income, not investment income.

[00:21:52] Arielle: It’s earned income, right? And it’s per person. So if one partner aches 260, 000 and one partner makes. Zero, you can only exclude 130, 000 per person, okay, so that’s the first opportunity. Second opportunity is foreign tax credits. And in some ways you can mix and match these. For people who live in high tax countries, I love just claiming foreign tax credits because foreign earned income exclusion, it’s a use it or lose it.

[00:22:20] Arielle: Right? You don’t use 130, 000. You only use 100, 000. You can’t carry over the 30, 000 next year. It’s inflation adjusted. It goes up a little bit every year, but right now it’s 130, 000. Foreign tax credits, on the other hand, if you’re living in a high tax country, you can bank those foreign tax credits. Now, bank those credits and then move, move to a low tax country or a no tax country.

[00:22:43] Arielle: We have, we have, we’re set. We, like, we, we have a nice bank to draw down. So tax planning between countries absolutely is very important. Yeah.

[00:22:53] Mickelle: And that’s of course, as soon as you can know, the sooner the better, obviously. But I think I was just speaking, I, I speak to people every single week. I speak to two to three people per week for this podcast that they.

[00:23:04] Mickelle: are moving, they’ve strategized, they’ve, they have their family goals, and then they lay that on top. So it’s almost layering, like your family goals, your personal goals, on top of your financial goals, on top of your citizenship goals. And that’s what we advocate on this podcast is basically living your life the way you see fit.

[00:23:20] Mickelle: Of course, within the law, all this stuff, but you don’t have to sacrifice for it necessarily if you have the right team around you. So or Have these stressful letters. I mean, we have a lot of jokes in the Netherlands, like these blue envelopes come through the mail, like if you’re a international, if you’re a Dutch person, you get maybe one or two in your lifetime.

[00:23:38] Mickelle: So it’s a big deal. It has the crown on it. It’s an official government letter. We get one a week. So, the blue envelopes coming through the mailbox is like not, we’re just like, yep, here we go again. Not because we’re doing something wrong, just because we’re doing so much outside the box, they’re notifying us.

[00:23:55] Mickelle: We just don’t fit the norm. And that’s international people in general. Like, if you’re living between countries, especially as U. S. citizens, you are literally in two systems fully with both feet. And that can become Not only financially, but also emotionally draining. And I’m sure you see that in your, in your clients where it’s like, just the emotional toll of not knowing or not having a plan can really, really change the way.

[00:24:22] Mickelle: Your life is. And so maybe talk a little bit about that and the benefits you see of that.

[00:24:27] Arielle: Yeah, no, I see that all the time. And so actually one of the things that our firm does when we’re doing so we, we, you know, we generally work with people on an ongoing basis. And so it’s important for us to deeply know who they are.

[00:24:40] Arielle: And one of the exercises we do is is a value based exercise where I just ask individuals. Actually, even if we’re working with a couple, I ask you, I ask them to prepare it separately, right? Like, and then we’ll like reveal, you know, what are your values? And just, it’s usually like your, your value, which is the word.

[00:24:57] Arielle: And then a sentence that really describes what that means to you. So a lot of people are like family, it’s like, well, what does that mean? Sometimes family is your immediate family. Sometimes it’s just, it’s, it’s really a close circle of friends who you consider your family. We really want to understand deeply what do those values actually mean and translate?

[00:25:16] Arielle: Because at the end of the day, I truly believe most people are either going to run out of time or money, right? Time and money are limited. And maybe we’re gonna have enough money, but time becomes the restraint for a lot of our clients. And so when we have to make these decisions, you’re absolutely right.

[00:25:32] Arielle: They are so exhausting, right? You move to a country, you have an expat job and you think that you have a contract for three to five years, just had this happen with a client. They sold their house. We packed up, they moved to Germany. He’s an executive in Germany. Oh, wow. They’re restructuring. And it’s like, you know, this is a, such a big company that they’re not considering who is the expat and who just like restarted their life.

[00:25:55] Arielle: It’s not personal. Right. It’s a large company. And so, you know, going back to the drawing board and having that uncertainty, it can feel like you’re just kind of like really unshaken, shaken in a foreign country. You don’t understand the system. You don’t understand your rights. And so we don’t do everything right.

[00:26:11] Arielle: I’m not an immigration lawyer, so I’m not an employment rights lawyer. So we really make sure we have the right team around our clients to make sure we can navigate a lot of these issues that pop up.

[00:26:22] Mickelle: Yeah. And I would say, so we’ve gone through this exercise a lot with my, with my husband and I our goal is freedom.

[00:26:29] Mickelle: And so that’s our main, but that is a really, really difficult one when the tax and immigration system is the way it is. You really have to be add in there strategic to actually feel free. Otherwise, you’re constantly calculating, you’re constantly wondering, you’re constantly worrying. And so if you want to be, this for me, having good contacts, having a team around you is the best way to fulfill that value of me living out my value of being free.

[00:26:57] Mickelle: And so, yeah, we always encourage this. We have an exercise on our website, like, how to find your personal values. And then, know that you cannot do it alone. Like, you can. You can spend hours online. Well, you can. Yeah. But, I think part of the journey of living internationally is sometimes learning to Well, first of all, use your gut, your intuition shoots up like you, that’s what you have.

[00:27:19] Mickelle: As you said, you have to get to know your clients very well because you have to advocate for them sometimes. Like it’s, it’s uncharted waters in some ways between countries, but also it’s an exercise in connecting with these, this network of people that you, you have on your team. I mean, we’re all in the same boat usually, which is really, really fun.

[00:27:38] Mickelle: And so To close us out, I would really love for you to tell us, maybe give us some tips, some tricks, some things you always recommend to people come to you and then how I think people can probably come to you for a consultation or to get to know you how to do that. I would love for people to know how to learn more because you’re obviously.

[00:27:57] Mickelle: I love what you’re doing. I love the, your approach that you’re taking. And I love that you are helping people live their dreams in a very legal and compliant way. That makes me happy. So tell us a little bit about that to close us out.

[00:28:10] Arielle: Absolutely. So I am, I’m so passionate about how How do we optimize our life?

[00:28:15] Arielle: And we said that before, but that’s really what I’m trying to do. How do you build that best version? And so if it is on your bucket list of like, I want to move abroad at some point, really sit down and start actually like drafting that out. Like what climates, what countries. And I would, again, like I said, start with just vacationing more regularly.

[00:28:34] Arielle: Americans are terrible at taking vacations. And I had a, actually I had a project like last year, they came to us and we want to move to Portugal. And I was like, awesome, great. Let’s get you on vacation there. They went to Portugal. They spent two weeks there. They hated it. And they were like, we would never move to Portugal.

[00:28:50] Arielle: Now I’m from upstate New York and I am, I’m like pretty intense person. I like rules. I like. things to work for me. And so I always knew I could never live south of Pennsylvania. Like I consider Pennsylvania south. And it’s, and that kind of translates to the countries that I’ve chosen to live in Switzerland, Germany, there are, there is a, there is a, there is a system.

[00:29:11] Arielle: And if you can work within the system, it works really well. When I start to go on vacation and I’m in like Italy, I, I’m like, So much chaos like I can’t imagine like living here like it just doesn’t fit my personality So finding like which country so it’s like I want to move to Europe Europe is a big place and just like in the US every region and country is so unique so really getting down and exploring those places and Americans have so much opportunity because you have the 90 days that you can just come and hang out in Europe, right?

[00:29:42] Arielle: So that’s as a next step. When does that change? But you could still, you could still come. You just have to register. You just have to get the, it’s still very easy.

[00:29:50] Mickelle: It’s this now, I think now, it’s now ish, you have to just, you have to get an additional visa, it’s online, it’s easy, but that made me really sad, but you’re right, we have 90 days and a lot of countries.

[00:29:59] Mickelle: You could

[00:30:00] Arielle: still, you could still, it’s still, it’s still very possible and easy to travel for 90 days, so take advantage of that, really explore. The other thing, you and I both have kids. And that is like a whole nother thing. You had, I want to move by the time we were five. We moved back to Europe and my thing was, I want to move back to a German speaking country before my daughter turns seven because I didn’t want her to have an accent.

[00:30:19] Arielle: That’s really important. So thinking about timing and how you move with your children is so important. All of those things. Really think about it. Don’t just make a gut like, oh, I didn’t like who won the election or something. So now we’re moving abroad because you’ve seen this. You’ve been here for eight years.

[00:30:35] Arielle: I’ve been over here for, you know, 12, 13 years now. It’s moved right here too, and not to get political, but like the, you know, immigration rules eight years ago in the Netherlands were very different than they are today. And that translates to a lot of countries. If you look at the programs and the opportunities, right?

[00:30:53] Arielle: I think I always think about like the NHR program, which was so fabulous in Portugal. Great program. That’s closed. Right. So it’s kind of like these whack a mole, like these, these programs and countries and opportunities, they’re there, but they are changing. Political environments are changing and that has huge implications on like immigration rules.

[00:31:12] Arielle: So, there is a lot to consider. Just start making your list and doing your research and when you’re ready, you know, we’re here to support you. So we have a couple ways that you can connect. I’m on Instagram, Arielle Tucker abroad. I also have a podcast, Passport to Wealth, where we just talk about U. S. tax and financial issues for U.

[00:31:30] Arielle: S. expats on a, on a more global general level. And then we have my firm Connected Financial Planning, which really focuses on holistic financial planning for U. S. expats and their families or wannabe U. S. expats and their families. I’m sure we can link those in the, in the show notes, but really lots of ways to connect and, and, and follow me.

[00:31:50] Mickelle: That’s great. All right. We’ll put everything in the show notes, of course, but I love to hear you say it for those people who don’t want to look at their phones. Say the name of your company, Connected Financial Planning.

[00:31:59] Arielle: Yes. Connected Financial Planning is the name of our firm.

[00:32:02] Mickelle: And can people reach out and that you said you have a 45 minute consultation.

[00:32:06] Arielle: Yeah. So we basically have two ways that we can work with you. So we do offer a complimentary call for individuals who are looking for ongoing financial planning. We’re happy to, you know, we do have a bit of a wait list. And so we are always looking for a great mutual, a great fit. Who can we help the most?

[00:32:22] Arielle: And then we also have a paid console. And so the paid console is great for people who are just like getting started. And they are looking for a sounding board. I’m like, what are the next steps that I need to do? So we really get into what are your immediate questions? How could I answer those? What are the resources that I can provide you with so that you can kind of.

[00:32:39] Arielle: Yeah.

[00:32:43] Mickelle: That’s great. It’s when you get stuck. That’s what happens. You get stuck and go, what about this, this and this? And then you can come and yeah, chat. That is amazing. So we’ll link to that as well. Thank you so much. I’m going to have you on again because I think we just barely scratched the surface.

[00:32:57] Mickelle: Oh

[00:32:57] Arielle: my God. Anytime. I love talking about this stuff if you can’t tell.

[00:33:00] Mickelle: I can tell. And I love it. So that is amazing because I think again, our podcast listeners aren’t all American, but we do have a big audience. Following of Americans. And it is a very unique position that I’ve been in myself. And so I think it does take support, coming around, resources, team and a really good handle on what you’re dealing with.

[00:33:19] Mickelle: And also maybe it’s a little bit of fun to be able to plan your life in a way that you’re playing a game in a way instead of what it seems like, which is a little bit of a burden sometimes.

[00:33:31] Arielle: Can you imagine you and your partner? Are you sitting down and just allowing time to plan out your future and getting excited about it and getting the tools and resources to, a lot of the work we do sometimes is just giving people permission.

[00:33:45] Arielle: You can do this. You can do this.

[00:33:49] Mickelle: If you want to live abroad, you can. Yep. Yep. Cool. Well, thank you so much, Arielle. I really appreciate it. And thanks for coming on. We’ll see you again and enjoy your day. Thank you so much.